Nice Tattoo! I Didn’t Know You Worked at Walmart

Democracy in Chains - The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America

Subscriber Link - click here to make yours.

Friday, 2 March 2018

quote [ Employees ink company logos on arms, legs and backs in a show of corporate loyalty. “My son was like, ‘You’re an idiot,’” says one executive. ]

I would never want to hire someone who thinks this is a good idea.

[NSFW] [business]	[+3 Sad]
[by lilmookieesquire@10:40pmGMT]

Comments

raphael_the_turtle said @ 10:49pm GMT on 2nd Mar [Score:2]

Paywall.

Ankylosaur said @ 1:23am GMT on 3rd Mar [Score:1 Funny]

If you get a Wall Street Journal tattoo they'll give you a lifetime subscription to their site.

lilmookieesquire said @ 2:27am GMT on 3rd Mar [Score:1 Sad]

Basically it’s a confessional of people that got lame company logo tattoos.

Taxman said @ 3:16am GMT on 3rd Mar [Score:1 Sad]

Reveal

satanspenis666 said @ 3:47am GMT on 3rd Mar [Score:1 Sad]

lilmookieesquire said @ 7:54pm GMT on 4th Mar

Here’s the shitty article

Reveal

Anytime Fitness has a tattoo room at its corporate headquarters in Woodbury, Minn., with a chair, a sink and a book illustrating ways that employees can show off the company’s running man logo.

While job-hopping is rampant, a surprising number of American workers are expressing a bond with their employers in permanent ink. Employees at such companies as tech’s Red Hat Inc. and sportswear icon Nike Inc. have brand logos plastered on their ankles, shoulders and arms.

Some who wear their heart on their sleeve this way at first feel sheepish outside the office. Mark Daly, Anytime Fitness’s media director, said he was pressured into getting a company tattoo by co-workers chanting “Daly! Daly!” He hid the tattoo from his wife, Laura Daly, for three days before confessing at a hot tub party.

He recalled his wife was shocked but decided it was “kind of sexy.” Ms. Daly has a different recollection. “No, I would not describe it as cool or sexy,” she said, calling her husband a “knucklehead.”

Mahadeva Matt Mani, a principal with Strategy&, part of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, got an ampersand tattoo during a retreat to show his faith in the company.
Mahadeva Matt Mani, a principal with Strategy&, part of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, got an ampersand tattoo during a retreat to show his faith in the company. Photo: Matt Mani

At age 40, tattoos weren’t on the bucket list of consultant Mahadeva Matt Mani, a suburban father who generally wears suits with a tie and a pocket handkerchief. But at a company retreat in New Orleans a few years ago, he was called upon to prove his loyalty. His firm, Booz & Co., was being purchased by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and employees were worried.

To show his faith, Mr. Mani, a company principal, marched into a tattoo parlor to memorialize the new firm, Strategy&, with a 2.5-inch ampersand. “It felt right in the moment,” he said.

On his skin, Mr. Mani added, it felt like “a lot of pin pricks.”

The accolades of his younger employees didn’t match the reception he got at home in Herndon, Va. “My son was like, ‘You’re an idiot,’ ” Mr. Mani said.

In 2014, the former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson for her 60th birthday memorialized her nearly two-decade career at the newspaper she grew up reading with her parents. It was the letter “T,” rendered in the broadsheet’s signature font and tattooed on her back. She said it felt like her “personal hieroglyphic.”

Jill Abramson for her 60th birthday got tattoos on her back to memorialize her ties with Harvard and the New York Times, where she was executive editor at the time.
Jill Abramson for her 60th birthday got tattoos on her back to memorialize her ties with Harvard and the New York Times, where she was executive editor at the time. Photo: Cornelia Griggs

Ms. Abramson, who was fired two months later, said she had no regrets: “I love the Times more than I loved working there.” She wouldn’t get a tattoo to mark her 10 years at The Wall Street Journal, she said. “It just wasn’t in my family’s blood.”

Tattoos have evolved over centuries from markers of tribe or social class to statements about an individual’s life or aspirations, said Beverly Yuen Thompson, associate professor of sociology at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., and a researcher of tattoo subcultures.

“Even if it’s not a job you plan to hold for your whole life, your work often becomes part of your story,” she said. Still, “Most people don’t have jobs they’re passionate about and don’t want reminders of that on their body.”

That isn’t true of Jeff Atkins, 24, who loves his Walmart job. He manages the produce department at a store in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and on his left arm has a 4-inch tattoo of Walmart’s yellow-and-blue starburst logo.

“Twenty-five percent of my life I’ve been working for Walmart,” he said. “I just wanted something that kind of showed where I had been and what I had done in my life.”

Like pulling an all-nighter at the office, a company tattoo can signify devotion in a way that impresses colleagues and breeds trust with clients.

Jeff Atkins manages the produce department of a Walmart store in Myrtle Beach, S.C.. He has a tattoo of the company’s logo.
Jeff Atkins manages the produce department of a Walmart store in Myrtle Beach, S.C.. He has a tattoo of the company’s logo. Photo: Jeff Atkin

Dave Heath, co-founder of Bombas, a sock startup, said he jokingly promised potential backers in 2013 that he would get the company’s bumblebee logo inked after selling the millionth pair. He wasn’t too worried about making good on it at the time, he said. “We hadn’t sold a single pair.”

Bombas’ co-founder reminded Mr. Heath of the pledge 2½ years later.

“I guess this is what I have to do,” he said about getting his first tattoo at age 33. A video of the inking went viral on Facebook , leading Bombas to quickly sell another six million pairs.

Paul Bosneag, a manager who works with franchise-holders of the Anytime Fitness gym chain, said he opted for the needle in 2010 as job security. At the time, he said, he recalled thinking, “What kind of a jerk would fire an employee that has the logo tattooed on him?”

It turns out Chuck Runyon, chief executive of Anytime Fitness, has fired around seven people who got company tattoos. Performance, he said, is more important than loyalty.

Ron Pevny, 43, said he was so thrilled to get a job offer from the U.S. Forest Service in 2001 that he got a tattoo before he even started. It was the agency’s trademark fir tree—with added flames.

New hires enter a monthslong training program before they’re invited to become a permanent Forest Service employee. Agency veterans weren’t impressed with his new ink.

“They asked, ‘What are you going to do if you don’t pass rookie school?’” he recalled. “I hadn’t contemplated that.”

Mr. Pevny passed the training, but left for a new job with the U.S. National Park Service a few years later. He decided he didn’t need a new tattoo. “They’re really similar agencies,” he said.

Red Hat employees Adam Miller, left, Jan Wildeboer, center, and Thomas Cameron show off their tattoos at a technology conference in 2015.
Red Hat employees Adam Miller, left, Jan Wildeboer, center, and Thomas Cameron show off their tattoos at a technology conference in 2015. Photo: Red Hat

Red Hat tech worker Thomas Cameron got reimbursed for his $100 tattoo by filing it as an office supply expense. “It’s ink, right?” he said, “and you need ink in the office.”

Mr. Cameron plans another trip to the tattoo shop soon. The company recently announced it was changing its logo.

“I already have a place on my arm picked out,” he said.

Wadysseus said @ 4:17am GMT on 3rd Mar [Score:1 Underrated]

This hurts me on a fundamental level. Hail corporate, I guess.

backSLIDER said @ 11:16pm GMT on 2nd Mar

Companies are not your friend. That said, if I saw someone with a "GameStop Xmas 2001" tattoo I could see that as a badge of honor.

BUGGERLUGS123 said @ 10:27am GMT on 4th Mar

Indeed, back when the gaming industry was full of originality and didn't suck.

Jodan said @ 12:58am GMT on 3rd Mar

+1 Cringe

Ankylosaur said @ 1:25am GMT on 3rd Mar

lilmookieesquire said^[1] @ 7:56pm GMT on 4th Mar

Is that a zune logo?

Edit: omg it is

wolf359 said @ 4:09am GMT on 3rd Mar

I have worked at a company for over 10 years now. One of my coworkers got the logo tattooed. People asked him "you're that dedicated to the company? "

He replied, no, it was to remind him of that time in his life and the people he met. That was a good reason. Most of these don't have that.

Dienes said @ 3:52pm GMT on 3rd Mar

If he's worried about not being able to remember 10 years of his adult life, perhaps he should talk to a neurologist.

HoZay said @ 4:28pm GMT on 3rd Mar

Maybe keep a diary.

lilmarketingesquire said @ 7:55pm GMT on 4th Mar

A diary tattooed on your body with corporate logo?